Politics Archive

“Parliamentary control of the executive—rightly conceived—is not the enemy of effective government, but its primary condition.” Bernard Crick, The Reform of Parliament, 1970, p 259 David Frum is not a fan of the Reform Act. What underlies Frum’s objection to the Act is a blurring of the distinction between, on the one hand, the legislature and the Executive, and on the other, party and government. It’s not that Frum doesn’t understand that these distinctions exist – he does – to a degree, at least. But he doesn’t seem to understand them well. Frum doesn’t want to relinquish one iota of a party leader’s control over candidate nominations. He writes: No party can perfectly protect itself against ever nominating crooked or […]

In my first post on the Reform Act, I addressed the proposal of allowing a caucus to implement a leadership review upon a petition of 15% of the elected members and a secret ballot vote garnering over 50% support. This was complemented by a brief look at how this process has worked in other jurisdictions. My second Reform Act post focused on the proposal that we remove the party leader’s veto over riding nominations. This last post will focus on Chong’s proposal that caucuses elect their chairs and admit and eject caucus members based on the 15%/50% rules employed to trigger a leadership review. I will start by saying that I honestly have no real opinion concerning the matter of […]

As touched on in my first post on the Reform Act, some critics of the bill argue that formal rules establishing a procedure by which a party caucus could initiate a vote of confidence in, followed by the possible removal of, its leader aren’t necessary since caucuses already have that power. Alice Funke, for example, writes: there is nothing in the law currently preventing party caucuses from doing this very thing now, and indeed they have done so frequently in our current system: Joe Clark was pushed into a leadership review, Michel Gauthier was pushed out as leader by the Bloc Québécois caucus, a good part of Stockwell Day’s caucus left him and the Canadian Alliance and joined the remainder […]

Another reform being proposed by MP Michael Chong in his Reform Act (see this first post for background) is removing the party leader’s veto over riding nominations. Currently, the Canada Elections Act stipulates that the witness for a nominated candidate must file with the returning officer in the electoral district in which the prospective candidate is seeking nomination: “an instrument in writing, signed by the leader of the political party or by a person referred to in subsection 383(2), that states that the prospective candidate is endorsed by the party in accordance with section 68.” [67(4)(c)] The Reform Act proposes instead: 4. Paragraph 67(4)(c) of the Act is replaced by the following: (c) if applicable, an instrument in writing, signed […]

Canadian Conservative MP Michael Chong today introduced Bill C-559 “An Act to amend the Canada Elections and the Parliament of Canada Act (reforms)“, otherwise known as the Reform Act. When news of what the bill would propose broke several days ago, it immediately sparked great excitement among columnists and politics fans alike. Some hailed it as the bill that would save Parliament; others were more subdued, calling it “a solution in search of a problem“. The bill proposes three reforms. First, it would remove the existing requirement that a party leader sign the nomination papers of prospective candidates for that party. Second, it would allow a caucus to implement a leadership review upon a petition of 15% of the elected […]

The Institute for Public Policy Research’s (IPPR) new report, Divided democracy: Political inequality in the UK and why it matters, takes a novel approach to the issue of declining voter turnout. Declining voter turnout is not a new issue, nor is it one of concern only to the UK. While most studies look at the reasons why more and more citizens are staying away from the ballot box, this report looks at the consequences of lower voter participation among certain sectors of society, young voters and lower-income voters. It is this growing inequality of turnout that is the focus of the IPPR’s research: Unequal turnout matters because it reduces the incentives for governments to respond to the interests of non-voters […]

Random Quote

“The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcasses of dead policies. When a mast falls overboard, you do not try to save a rope here and a spar there in memory of their former utility. You cut away the hamper altogether. It should be the same with policy, but it is not so. We cling to the shred of an old policy after it has been torn to pieces, and to the shadow of the shred after the rag itself has been torn away.”